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In 2008, entrepreneur Eric Ries wrote the seminal book ‘Lean Startup'. Many social entrepreneurs tried to use the ‘Lean Startup' principles but missed the need for impact at the core of any social change initiative. In today's episode, we talk to Ann Mei Chang, a leading expert on social innovation and author of “Lean Impact: How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good” - the book that puts impact at the heart of Lean. Starting her career as a tech executive, Ann Mei then served as the Chief Innovation Officer at USAID and first Executive Director of its US Global Development Lab. On the show, we chat about why vanity metrics inhibit impact, how to unblock the barriers to impact in the social sector, and how changemakers can get started in applying the Lean Impact practices. Get a copy of Ann Mei's book here. -- Learn more about Spring Impact. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Today on The Social Leader podcast, Fr. Justin Mathews interviews Ann Mei Chang, author of "LEAN IMPACT: How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good." If you have ever wondered how to go from helping a few people in need to actually making a big dent in the societal problem you care about most... this episode is for you. Ann Mei started her career in the private sector with more than 20 years executive leadership at companies such as Google, Apple, and Intuit. Inspired to make a dent in global poverty, Ann Mei stepped into the public sector as a Senior Advisor for Women and Technology in the US Department of State and ultimately served as the Chief Innovation Officer at USAID.Reaching ambitious social impact goals starts with understanding the principles of social leadership that Ann Mei shares in today's episode. From setting your intention and getting to know a societal problem with a humble spirit, to leading from the head and the heart, to processes for maximizing value, growth, and impact – Ann Mei will inspire you to be a force for good in our ever-evolving world. Learn more about Ann Mei Chang and check out "LEAN IMPACT: How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good" at www.leanimpact.org
We recently hosted a conversation between Maryana Iskander, CEO at Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, and Ann Mei Chang, Executive Director of Lean Impact at Lean Startup Co., focused on the pioneering work of Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator in South Africa and their efforts to tackle the global youth unemployment crisis. In Maryana and Ann Mei’s conversation, they discuss: - How Harambee focused their efforts on solving problems for two customers - young people looking for a job and businesses needing to hire. - How they used data to guide their problem solving efforts and what some of the key learnings were. - Their efforts to scale their work to Rwanda and what the key challenges have been. And much, much more… South Africa has a big problem on its hands. Even though they make up less than 1% of the world’s population, they have one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world. It’s a problem that’s compounded over time. Every year, nearly two-thirds of young people who enter the job market end up unemployed, resulting in a population of between six and nine million unemployed young people. It’s a problem not easily solved. It’s not just a matter of not having enough jobs or a lack of the right type of education — although, those are big problems. But even at the most basic level, there are barriers to entry that are just now being recognized. Things like not having the resources to properly look for a job or enough money to afford transportation to an interview are factors that haven’t traditionally been considered in the past. But when businesses began to recognize their difficulties in finding young people to fill open positions, they got together to try to find a solution. Their efforts led to the creation of Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator. Today, the award-winning non-profit uses data and innovation to bridge the gap between employers and unemployed young people as they work to solve the global youth unemployment crisis. Email us: education@leanstartup.co Follow Lean Startup Co. @leanstartup https://leanstartup.co/education
Nonprofits Are Messy: Lessons in Leadership | Fundraising | Board Development | Communications
Organizations of all kinds know they must innovate or die out. But this word causes nonprofit leaders to break out in cold sweats. Why?
Nonprofits Are Messy: Lessons in Leadership | Fundraising | Board Development | Communications
Organizations of all kinds know they must innovate or die out. But this word causes nonprofit leaders to break out in cold sweats. Why? The post Ep 78: What Nonprofits Can Learn from Tech Start-ups (with Ann Mei) appeared first on Joan Garry Nonprofit Leadership.
From Google to startups to the US Agency for International Development, Ann Mei Chang has seen how thinking big and taking calculated risks can lead to large scale change in any sector. As a tri-sector leader, Ann Mei was able … The post Ann Mei Chang: Innovating and Experimenting for Outsized Impact appeared first on CASE.
Today Dolph talks about a different kind of MVP with Ann Mei Chang, author of Lean Impact: How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good. Ann Mei draws upon the work of Eric Ries in defining and optimizing the Minimum Viable Product approach when tackling issues for the betterment of our world. Links: Lean Impact: www.leanimpact.org Ann Mei's book is available at Amazon and at brick-and-mortar bookstores *****Timestamped Highlights***** (2:00) Dolph accidentally skips words when he reads(!) (3:55) How California nonprofit Code for America used the MVP approach (6:25) “The Amazon of Lower Africa” (9:09) The Grand Master Plan – why it’s the best thing since sliced bread – or is it?? (10:33) How to fail small (14:45) The Build—Measure—Learn Feedback Loop (17:50) Orangutans – A Love Story (22:19) 1200 words now, the beach later (24:24) Catalog dreams dashed
Ann Mei Chang is the Executive Director of Lean Impact at Lean Startup Co., a company that encourages all organizations, especially ones seeking solutions to social problems, to think like startups. She is also the author of the new book LEAN IMPACT: How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good, which takes a closer look at the idea of applying entrepreneurial thinking to social problem solving and explores examples of how these theories have played out in advocacy organizations around the world. Ann Mei came to this work through a winding path of both social and technological innovation. After graduating from Stanford with a degree in computer science, she went to work in Silicon Valley as a software engineer, and quickly climbed her way up the management ladder as she moved between tech startups. But after 20+ years in fast-paced Palo Alto, Ann Mei decided it was time to use her skills as an engineer and innovator to truly make the world a better place. More specifically, she set out to end global poverty. She began a career in government work and again climbed the management ladder quickly, becoming the Chief Innovation Officer at USAID and later the first Executive Director of the US Global Development Lab. She also served the US Department of State as Senior Advisor for Women and Technology in the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues and, after moving from government to NGO work, Chief Innovation Officer at Mercy Corps. Today, Ann Mei combines the skills she’s developed over her two illustrious careers to bring a new approach to solving global social issues by thinking like the innovator and engineer she always will be. The post 63: Lean Impact Solutions to Social Problems With Ann Mei Chang, Lean Startup Co. [Main T4C Episode] appeared first on Time4Coffee.
As the former Chief Innovation Officer at USAID, Ann Mei served as the first Executive Director of the US Global Development Lab. In this role, Ann Mei was responsible for identifying breakthrough innovations and transforming the way development was done in order to accelerate our pace of progress. Her firsthand knowledge in both tech and...
Global poverty is at the root of so many things. So many things. From hunger, to the orphan crisis, to human trafficking, to drug trafficking, to homelessness, to disease and HIV/AIDS - global poverty is at the root. Reducing or even eliminating global poverty is the key to reducing and eliminating so much hurt and pain in the world. But this issue is so complicated, as most issues are. But it is one that is incredibly important. My guest today left a life of comfort and security, working in the area of technology startups, to pursue a deeper calling. My guest this week is Ann Mei Chang, the Executive Director of Lean Impact at the Lean Startup Company and author of the book Lean Startup that will be released soon! Previously, she was the Chief Innovation Officer USAID and Mercy Corps, and served the U.S. Department of State as Senior Advisor for Women in Technology in the office of Global Women’s Issues. Prior to her pivot to the public sector, Ann Mei had more than 20 years experience as a technology executive at leading companies such as, you know, Google and Apple. Heard of them? This was such an incredible and interesting conversation and I learned so much from it! SILICON VALLEY & A QUEST FOR DEEPER MEANING From early on, Ann Mei was fascinated by computers. When they first came out when she was 12-years-old, she taught herself how to program and went she went to college in California, she studied computer science. Her career for the first 23 years after college was in Silicon Valley in the tech industry working for both big and small companies, and having a lot of fun with it. At the same time, she always felt a yearning to do something more meaningful. Ann Mei donated and volunteered, but her work was very consuming at there were limits to how much she was able to do on the side. She was inspired by the idea of spending the first half of her career in Silicon Valley and the second half of her career in the public or social sector - trying to find some way to do some good in the world. It was in her early 40’s during her time at Google that she decided to make that shift. Ann Mei decided to take a leave of absence from Google and she ended up going to the State Department through a fellowship program. She calls it her “custom Masters in Public Policy.” Rather than going back to school and spending her time in the classroom, she learned by doing. AT THE ROOT OF IT ALL: GLOBAL POVERTY Ann Mei realized during her time at the State Department that Global Poverty was at the root of the majority of the issues she cared about. She firmly believes that talent is evenly distributed and opportunity is not - that many of the ills in the world arise because people do not have better options. The good news is that we have made dramatic progress in global poverty - the number of people in extreme poverty has been cut almost in half. The bad news is that where poverty remains, it is becoming even more entrenched. LOVING EVERY SECOND Michelle went back to school to focus on communications and public relations. As an extroverted and analytical individual, she excelled and fell in love with the industry. Upon graduating, she worked at a major PR firm and spent time in the nonprofit world. She began searching for what kind of business she could create where she could do what she loved, while escaping the 9-5 work life. It was during a midnight breastfeeding session that, while on Instagram, she first stumbled upon the world of business coaching. She was incredibly inspired by this concept, and pulled on all of her past experiences in deciding what the business would look like. Today, Brandmerry is a business that is all about branding and business mentoring. Michelle works with female entrepreneurs at every stage of the business, from coming up with the idea and launching, to running and scaling it successfully--and she loves every second of it. About Ann Mei Chang, Executive Director at Lean Impact: Ann Mei Chang is a leading advocate for social innovation and author of LEAN IMPACT: How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good (Wiley, Oct. 30, 2018). As Chief Innovation Officer at USAID, Ann Mei served as the first Executive Director of the US Global Development Lab, engaging the best practices for innovation from Silicon Valley to accelerate the impact and scale of solutions to the world’s most intractable challenges. She was previously the Chief Innovation Officer at Mercy Corps and served the US Department of State as Senior Advisor for Women and Technology in the Secretary's Office of Global Women’s Issues. Prior to her pivot to the public and social sector, Ann Mei was a seasoned technology executive, with more than 20 years’ experience at such leading companies as Google, Apple, and Intuit, as well as at a range of startups. As Senior Engineering Director at Google, she led worldwide engineering for mobile applications and services, delivering 20x growth to $1 billion in annual revenues in just three years. Ann Mei currently serves on the boards of BRAC USA and IREX, is a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution, and is a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Stanford University, is a member of the Aspen Institute’s Henry Crown Fellows’ class of 2011, and was recognized as one of the “Women In the World: 125 Women of Impact” by Newsweek/The Daily Beast in 2013. Ann Mei is a keynote speaker who has been featured at TEDx MidAtlantic, SxSW, Social Good Summit, SOCAP, and Lean Startup Week, as well as numerous nonprofits, foundations, and government agencies. CONNECT WITH ANN MEI Lean Impact: https://leanstartup.co/social-good/ Lean Impact Book: https://www.annmei.com/ https://amzn.to/2qjUjAw Facebook: Lean Startup Co. Contact: Lean Startup Co. Linkedin: Lean Startup Co. Twitter: @leanstartup Special thanks to Cultivate What Matters for sponsoring this week’s Business with Purpose podcast. Visit http://www.stillbeingmolly.com/cultivate to shop! Join my Purchase with Purpose Facebook group and let’s continue the conversation! https://www.facebook.com/groups/purchasewithpurpose/ Subscribe to the Business with Purpose podcast (and I’d love it if you left a review** on iTunes!) 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